Another Force
by sapphireblackrose
Summary: River has always been a danger, the crew knows. But what happens when she seriously injures the person dearest to her? What will they do, with him, and with River? And when sides are taken, who will side with River, and who will side against? What will happen when they learn that River is being controlled by something else, not her own brain, but another force? And how? Post-BDM.
1. Unpredicted

**Hey guys. I recently watched firefly, and I am basically dying of Firefly withdrawal, so I, of course, wrote a fanfiction. So umm... a brief thing about warnings and pairings and things. There will not really be any pairings in this fic, just some hinted Kaylee x Simon. This is rated T for violence (more just...disturbing than real fighting), some language (in Mandarin, but with translations at the end of fic), and for some innuendo (and Inara is a ****_companion_****, so that also adds in). And disclaimer. Duh, I don't own this show, or it would still be running today. Joss. Joss Whedon. Heard of him? ****_He_**** owns it.**

_Spinning spinning spinning spinning. _

River couldn't take it. All the thoughts were spiraling through her head, the screams, the whispers. She tried to single them out but they were all jumbled. _Lost_. _Lost._ She tried to pull herself together and she couldn't, so she put her hands to her head and started rocking back and forth on her bed.

Something clicked. River looked up and saw the orange of her door and she was walking to it. The thoughts had quieted, bringing one forward, clear as day.

_Hurt Simon Tam. _

No! River would never hurt her _Gēgē._ Yet she still heard the door slide open, and she still stepped out of her room. No! No! With all of her willpower she tried to pull herself back into her room, away from what was coming.

She knew what was going to happen. She didn't want it to happen, but she couldn't stop it. She was going to do what the thought said, not because she wanted to, but because she couldn't stop it.

River took the stairs one at a time, trying to walk as slowly as possible. Her bare feet dragged up the stairs, her flowy orange skirt floating along with her, and her wavy dark brownish black hair covered her face. If you didn't know her, you would think she was just an innocent girl.

When she reached the top of the stairs, she bumped into Jayne. "_Gorramit_ girl." He grumbled. He looked back and his eyes met hers for a second. River didn't need to be a reader to know what he was thinking.

The look in River's eyes was swelling with a mix of fear and rage. She knew. Jayne's face was struck with fear. Of her. She knew. A single tear fell out of her eye, but she was forced to keep moving by this unknown force in her mind.

River's rage had been building. It wasn't against Simon, but against the thing that was controlling her. The thing was using her, using her power, using her emotions.

She could hear the thoughts again. They were happy thoughts. It made River shed another tear. Those were _Simon's_ happy thoughts. Thoughts she had to go suspend, and turn into hurt. Her heart burned with sadness. Not only would she be hurting her brother, but she would be hurting others too. Kaylee mostly. But Kaylee was the ship's ray of sunshine, sunny Kaylee. Kaylee sad, everyone else sad.

They would hate her. She would be unintentionally distancing herself. They would hurt her, won't know what to do with her.

_The bubble girl popped, _River thought. She was almost silently sobbing now.

Before she knew it, she had reached the dining room and common area, where almost everyone was. Simon was there too. She lifted up her arm to wipe her tears with the oversized sleeve of her yellow sweater.

A button was pressed, or something happened, channeling all of River's rage against the force controlling her into a dangerous, hurting Simon rage. River didn't want to hurt him. Something, no, _someone_, was _making_ her hurt him.

She made her way to where everyone was sitting (aside from Jayne, as he had stomped off). When she walked into the room, Zoe said "Hi Riv-," but stopped mid-sentence, as she had seen her eyes. The rage in her eyes. Nobody saw the fear. And when nobody saw the fear… River was alone.

_Alone in the Black. _

She strode over to Simon. He had that horrified look on his face, which on any other day River would have laughed at that face, when Simon was scared of something unreasonable. Not today.

She put her hands on Simons' shoulders, and crouched down a little so she could be eye level with him, as he was sitting in a chair.

"Simon," she managed to whisper, from deep inside, a place that was still her, a place that wasn't being controlled by someone else, "_Duìbùqǐ_." And a single tear dripped down her face.

She pushed his shoulders back so that he would fall backwards, and with one swift kick, she knocked the chair legs off the ground. _No, _she reminded herself_, not her. Someone else._

A piercing scream that was loud enough to ring across the verse was perfectly aligned with the loud thudding of someone's head hitting the ground. River winced. _Who had screamed? That blow to the head was enough to do some terrible damage. _These were common thoughts she heard. It took her a minute, but she finally realized it was her who screamed.

She took off. Her bare feet pounding against the cold ground, now feeling very unwelcoming. She ran towards Somewhere. She ran towards Nowhere. She realized that she was Her now, instead of someone being controlled.

She found herself outside of Simon's room. She couldn't go in. She couldn't bear the thought. She had to have killed him.

Why her? She was wondering so many things and they were coming down, looking for her, looking for the infirmary for Simon, but they didn't know he was too far gone, but she didn't either and it was so overwhelming, all the thoughts, all the noise.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Simon's sweater strewn over the floor in the hallway. She would have just laughed and picked it up on any other day, and she would have just thought about all the times when Simon had never picked up his laundry when they were kids growing up back on Osiris.

But today was not just "any other day." She picked it up. It smelled like him.

The footsteps were getting louder now. She had to hide. She whipped around, nearly slamming into a ladder. She climbed the ladder.

River never had been up in these rooms. _Same. Uniform. _River thought to herself. The room looked exactly like hers and Simon's, without their things.

She sat on the bed, and decided that she would Listen for a while. What she heard scarred her. Well, they would have, except at the Academy, she was exposed to things even worse than this.

_But it was me this time. No! It wasn't. _River was conflicted, questioning her own judgments and thoughts. She shoved those feelings aside. Well, as far aside as someone with no amygdala could.

"Get him in the infirmary. Now!" Mal said. River heard the shuffling of feet and the sound of people murmuring. The thoughts in people's heads were devastating. Simon was thinking too. He could feel the pain and he could suffer even though he was unconscious. River hated it.

"Cap'n, he-he's bleedin' real bad." Kaylee said, her voice shaking, like she was crying.

"Sir, I don't think you wanna know his state," Zoe said, sounding hopeless.

"I can take it," Mal said.

"He's comatose sir."

Mal stared back at her, horrified. Everyone else dropped what they were doing, and froze. Simon was in a coma, and they had no idea what to do with him.

_Gēge: Older Brother_

_Gorramit: God damn it_

_Duìbùqǐ: I'm sorry_

_**Guys, before you go review that River is so OOC in this chapter, and she would never do these things, I know. There will be a clear explanation in the future, and it will all make sense. Think about the title. **_

**Well, I hope you liked it. More to come (soon, hopefully). And does anyone have any suggestions of places where River can hide? I gove you liked my River writing style. It's well...strange. And if you don't like it, other POV's will be added (still from a 3rd person narrator though). Well, please review, follow, fav, and constructive****criticism is OK, just, ya know, no hate, or I will take Vera from Jayne and, well, then its up to you. XD. Whatever. Byeees**


	2. Unrest

**Hey guys. I'm back. I meant to update this like a week and a half ago, but I have a very busy life. And over the next few weeks, it is going to get a hell of a lot busier. Well, I'll live, and therefore, I will update this fanfiction. So when I posted my last chapter I got some...less than positive comments, but it was all constructive, and we all made up, so thanks for the support from everyone. **

**So in this chapter, we get some insight on how Mal is in this chapter, and of course, some insane River, because you can't not have insane River Tam. Sorry that this chapter is short, but the next one should be quite a bit longer. Well, I hope you like it. **

Mal was torn. His medic was in a coma, caused by the medic's screwed up sister who, before today, had been currently functioning as their pilot. He had two problems. And probably more if you added it all up.

His main concern was getting Simon help, but the rest of them had no idea if (or when) River would hurt someone else. It was almost too much for Mal to deal with.

Another thing was really bothering him. River would never, if by any control of her own self would have hurt Simon. Mal had considered the possibility of Alliance codes, like the ones River saw before the whole Miranda fiasco. But they would have never got on Serenity. And anyways, if River had seen that, everyone else would be dead too.

It was a little overwhelming to think about it all. He decided to take a break on his serious thinking and go see how everyone else was coping. He stood up from the chair in the dining room he was sitting at, and made his way to the infirmary to check on Simon. He found Zoe there.

"Hey Zoe. How is he?" Mal inquired.

"He's stable enough." Zoe said. Her voice gained a more serious tone, "We have to get him help. He won't survive very long in our care."

"I know. I'll set a course for somewhere we can get help." Mal replied. He sounded like he really didn't know if Simon would make it through this. He looked at Simon and sighed. He exited the infirmary and headed back upstairs. He found Jayne sitting at the dining table.

"How's he lookin'? Jayne asked Mal.

"We're not sure. He needs help." Mal said.

Jayne shrugged. "It's that girl I'm worried 'bout. Ain't we gonna try to find her? I don't wanna die like that."

"Nobody else is dying. Not on my boat." Mal remarked. He left Jayne, but knew he was right. River would strike again, and he knew it. He made his way to the bridge.

Mal sat staring at the stars. He set a flight path to Persephone, hoping that someone there could help them.

After a while he got restless, and ended up wandering. He was kind of looking for River, but really just wandering. If anyone on the crew asked, he would say he was looking for River. He walked through the cargo bay, and he thought about when he first bought the ship, when they got cows as cargo and some other…interesting…things that had happened in the cargo bay.

What really puzzled Mal was that he was unoccupied. It seemed like any other day he would be doing something, like laughing with the crew, or, well anything. He had kept himself busy like that for years.

Now the stakes were just too high. Any of his crew could be hurt, or even killed any moment now, and by someone they knew and loved. It was a little too much for Mal to handle.

He turned around to see a young face, with dark brown messy hair. He almost screamed, but felt a hand over his mouth. Mal couldn't die here. Not killed by one of his crew, one of his friends.

River felt it again. The pull of that force that made her do bad things. She burrowed her head in her hands, trying to fight it, but it was too strong. The voices in her head stopped, like they did last time. Then a thought seemed to be pushed into her head, and she dreaded what came next.

_Hurt Malcolm Reynolds, but don't physically injure him. _

River didn't know how to do that, but this unknown force moved her legs towards the cargo bay, where Mal was. When she reached him, she was forced to grab him, and drag him over to some crates to sit on.

"You are going to sit there. And you are going to _stay _there," She said, putting her hand to her lips, in surprise that she would ever say something like that to him. She pushed that thought out of her head. _No. It is not me that is doing this, and I will NOT let this…creature…make me hurt people! _She told herself.

"Now, is that any way to speak to your captain?" Mal asked her.

"I didn't say you could speak." River replied, unwillingly.

Mal chuckled slightly. "The girl I knew, River Tam, she could just waltz into a room filled with reavers and kill them all with her bare hands. And I have no doubts she couldn't do that now." He sounded more solemn now. "But I don't know where she is. Gone missing, she has. River, this ain't you. Snap out of it." He said, with more meaning than River thought she would ever hear from him.

Those words really hurt River. She always loved Serenity, and, even though she didn't know how to show it, she loved Serenity's crew just as much. And she just knew that everyone else on the ship thought the exact same as Mal did. With all of the will she had, she fought the thing controlling her, and ran away, to find Serenity, abandoning her mission completely. Certainly there was somewhere on a ship named Serenity that she could find serenity in.

**Well, there's the chapter. I hope you enjoyed it, and some more should be coming in 2-3 weeks or so. Reviews, follows, and favourites are always appreciated, and constructive criticism is alright. Just don't hate. Or River Tam will get you. Thanks for reading. **


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